Kentucky Rupp Arena 8th Championship Celebration Recap

If you were unable to attend or watch the celebration at Rupp today for our team we've got your recap:

Today's celebration covered the team's bus ride from the airport to Rupp with a full police escort and cheering fans on the roads and sidewalks along the way. The bus pulled into Rupp and the names of the players were announced one by one starting with the walk-ons and ending with Miller (bringing the trophy) then the coaching staff.

With the players and coaching staff all seated on a stage, Barnhart started the celebration by thanking UK's current president as well as the past president Lee Todd, the coaching families, the players, etc. He then stated that "this programs not for everyone but it was made for him" at which point he pointed to Calipari who then took the stage.

Highlights from Cal's speech:
-we won the eighth championship because we had the "best players and team"
-"talent alone does not get it done" it requires sacrifice and respect with a team that plays for the team instead of themselves
-Cal went through all the players and said something about each of them (or as a group)
-Miller: gave up starting position he held for nearly 3 years for the team
-Lamb and Jones: came back for another year and sacrificed shots and points
-Teague: Cal called him our bull dog (or pit bull one) point guard
-Wiltjer: Cal threw up the goggle sign for Wiltjer and said he had could have played more minutes elsewhere but wanted to be on a winning team
-MKG: Cal mentioned how he gave up the starting spot in the SEC tournament to help Miller get in the game
-Davis: Cal talked about how when he got one of his first player of the year awards he looked at the team and said that he wouldn't have gotten the award without being on this team and with them
-Vargas: didn't get a lot of time but helped the team and will play professionally
-Malone/Long/Polson/Beckham: made the team better by showing up everyday and how hard the worked

Darius Miller then came up and thanked the fans for following the team and him. Calipari finally took the stage again and mentioned how when he first came to UK he talked about making UK the gold standard of college basketball, recruiting the best and brightest, being the number one team, and raising banners at which point banner 8 was let down and the coaches and team left the stage.

After the celebration, a few individual interviews were done on WKYT and Davis was asked if he would be back next year to which he laughed and replied "I have till April 29th and I just need to talk to my coaches and family".